| As a child of 8 years old, I was given 120MG of Ritalin per day. I rarely slept the first 2 years. If I did it was around 6am for an hour or so. Then I had to take my morning dose for school. They also wanted me to take a pill to sleep, which felt so horrible I cannot even explain it. I was a zombie in the morning if I took it, then onto the morning ritalin dose. I would just do pushups in my room until 3am some nights just to get the energy out. Yes, I did well in school while I was on it. Yes, I stayed out of trouble when I was on it. But I was not myself. I felt as if I were on drugs. I did not learn "how to learn" or "how to get things done" without being on drugs. When I finally kicked the habit in college, I was a mess. I couldn't do anything that took more than 30 seconds of concentration. I had to learn how to live life without drugs. For a condition I may or may not have had. It took me to more years to finish my last semester of college because I could not function. Years later I’ve relearned what I should have learned as a child – how to discipline myself and get things done. The DSM IV/V has a very loose definition of this "DISORDER". The genetic basis I don't doubt, because at one time in our evolution it was a selective adaptation that made us better at hunting, preventing accidents, and trying new things. Now, because our society resides in cubicles, desks, and institutions, it's a "DISORDER" that needs to be medicated. Just be good parents and give your child an environment where his or her differences can thrive. Find some open space and let them loose for several hours a day. Homeschool them with creative and intriguing lessons tailored just to them. Do whatever you can to allow their abilities become advantages rather than brand it a disorder and ruin their self-esteem by sending them to the nurse twice a day to be force-fed a pill they don’t need. Don't just give them a pill. That's lazy and detrimental to them in the long run. The over-prescription of these drugs is epidemic and I can't stand by and watch comments say : "Each year a parent doesn't take actions is a year lost for a child" to convince people to medicate children for what used to be a genetic advantage (and still is given the right environment). Each year a parent doesn't take actions to provide the right environment for their child's natural ability to thrive (rather than be told to have a disorder) is a year lost for that child. |
Your appeal to emotion argument is detrimental to all those who are (through prejudices like yours) denied treatment for what is an actual, physiological brain defect. 120 mg is a lot, it may have been too much for you, or you may not have ADHD, I don't know. But denying that a disorder exists because you had a bad experience is intellectually dishonest and holding back the treatment of hundreds of thousands if not millions, and social acceptance of treating it.
The science is clear on this point: ADHD exists, it is treatable, and the quality of life of people who have it is improved significantly with medication and behavioral therapy. That methylphenidate works has been widely proven scientifically, and its effects have been studied for decades. It's true that we don't know everything about it, and we will need further studies for decades, but that doesn't take away from the dramatic improvements in functioning that many people get from it.
Your 'argument' seems to be based on 'But I was not myself.'. I'm sorry that you apparently feel that there is some sort of mystical 'true self' that is somehow different when your neural functioning is chemically improved, and I hope that until you come to terms with reality you can live a productive life and be generally happy. But until then, don't be the crab at the bottom of the bucket.